509.  When evil spirits are in this second state, as they rush into evils of every kind they are subjected to frequent and grievous punishments.  In the world of spirits there are many kinds of punishment; and there is no regard for person, whether one had been in the world a king or a servant.  Every evil carries its punishment with it, the two making one; therefore whoever is in evil is also in the punishment of evil.  And yet no one in the other world suffers punishment on account of the evils that he had done in this world, but only on account of the evils that he then does; although it amounts to the same and is the same thing whether it be said that men suffer punishment on account of their evils in the world or that they suffer punishment on account of the evils they do in the other life, since everyone after death returns into his own life and thus into like evils; and the man continues the same as he had been in the life of the body (n. 470-484).  Men are punished for the reason that the fear of punishment is the sole means of subduing evils in this state.  Exhortation is no longer of any avail, neither is instruction or fear of the law and of the loss of reputation, since everyone then acts from his nature; and that nature can be restrained and broken only by punishments.  But good spirits, although they had done evils in the world, are never punished, because their evils do not return.  Moreover, I have learned that the evils they did were of a different kind or nature, not being done purposely in opposition to the truth, or from any other badness of heart than that which they received by inheritance from their parents, and that they were borne into this by a blind delight when they were in externals separate from internals.

510.  Everyone goes to his own society in which his spirit had been in the world; for every man, as regards his spirit, is conjoined to some society, either infernal or heavenly, the evil man to an infernal society and the good man to a heavenly society, and to that society he is brought after death (see n. 438).  The spirit is led to his society gradually, and at length enters it.  When an evil spirit is in the state of his interiors he is turned by degrees toward his own society, and at length, before that state is ended, directly to it; and when that state is ended he himself casts himself into the hell where those are who are like himself.  This act of casting down appears to the sight like one falling headlong with the head downwards and the feet upwards.  The cause of this appearance is that the spirit himself is in an inverted order, having loved infernal things and rejected heavenly things.  In this second state some evil spirits enter the hells and come out again by turns; but these do not appear to fall headlong as those do that are fully vastated.  Moreover, the society itself in which they had been as regards their spirit while in the world is shown to them when they are in the state of their exteriors, that they may thus learn that even while in the life of the body they were in hell, although not in the same state as those that are in hell itself, but in the same state as those who are in the world of spirits.  Of this state, as compared with those that are in hell, more will be said hereafter.